TV Guide for next week (Sept 29-Oct 5) has a pretty good and complete rundown of the first ep of TAR 13. On of the reporters from TV Guide accompanied the teams from Los Angeles to Salvador, Bahia. And he describes the tasks in detail. Maybe Puddin can lift the article and print it here; doing that is beyond my simple capabilities.

The Amazing Race 13: Completely Arbitrary Pre-Season Predictions Part 1, 11-7Tuesday, September 23, 2008 Yahoo! Buzz The Amazing Race is back for a thirteenth go-around this Sunday. It replaces the time-slot filled by Big Brother this summer, which means it will air after 60 Minutes' wrinkled crew of misfits and psychopaths (I'm looking at you, Rooney!). The Amazing Race just picked up its 55th Emmy in a row for Best Reality-Competition Series at Sunday's Emmy Awards. It's deserved – The Amazing Race is an incredible undertaking every season, and has consistently been one of the most entertaining reality shows on TV during its run. As we gear up for another season, it's about time to whip up some highly arbitrary pre-season predictions about the season. As always, know that the below predictions are beyond pointless, though I have known to be excellent at making them.

For full disclosure, I have seen the premiere episode of The Amazing Race 13. However, I made my list before watching the episode.

#11 - Marisa and Brooke

There are two all-female teams on The Amazing Race 13. One of them will do well. One of them will do poorly. So, I've picked the blondes to do poorly. It's not a bad bet, I don't think. Marisa and Brooke will be nice enough girls – though we won't get to know them very well – but lacking in travel experience. They are going to get lost on the first leg, start yelling at each other, then they'll get desperate and freak out, and that will be that. 13 year old boys everywhere will be devastated.

#10 - Anita and Arthur

You have to root for the hippie beekeepers. You just do. However, they are old. And they are hippies, so they won't be overly concerned with moving all that fast. This is an issue, because they are going on a race. They will make it past one elimination leg, but their sluggish movement will do them in eventually. Silver lining: viewers will once again understand why they used to love hippies.

#9 - Toni and Dallas

Mother-son pairings can be adorable, but Dallas's hair really pisses me off. He's got that Jersey-tinged absurdly gelled coiff. He's a Jager Bomb kind of guy. He describes himself as something of a player, which is exactly how a guy with that kind of hair would describe himself. Besides that, Toni is older, not in very good shape. She will slow the team down, which will in turn frustrate Dallas and cause some team strife.

#8 - Anthony and Stephanie

Anthony and Stephanie are one of those inexplicably volatile couples. They will go along and everything will appear peachy keen, and then one of the two explode on the other, sparks will fly, expletives will fill the air like a dense fog, and then, as if nothing ever happened, the two will be back to normal. This will be confusing for the audience. We will want to like these two, but at times that will be difficult. I foresee a cab driver witnessing a blow-up and, frustrated, dropping them off in the wrong place on purpose.

#7 - Mark and Bill

Who doesn't like a couple of openly middle-aged nerds? Like the beekeepers, they are adorable, and will have the majority of the viewing audience rooting for them. But, their advanced age and lack of physical prowess will bite them at a particularly brutal challenge. They will try their darnedest, but it will not be enough. They will make delightfully nerdy comments as the more physically able teams pass them by

After twelve seasons, The Amazing Race viewers grown used to seeing the show's contestants participate in some unusual tasks as they race around the world. However, according to co-creator and executive producer Bertram van Munster, the show will be kicking the danger level up a notch during this fall's thirteenth edition.

"[This season] you will see a tricky one where you will wonder 'How in the world did they have the guts to do this?' You are really going to wonder," van Munster told Reality TV World in an exclusive interview last week.

"I look[ed] at it and I [went] 'Oh what was I thinking? Oh my god, this could go very wrong.' And then it does."

But despite the unexpected task drama, The Amazing Race's thirteenth season -- which filmed this past summer and will premiere this Sunday at 8PM ET/PT on CBS -- will still feature the same structure and elements the show has become known for, according to van Munster.

"I think itâ€™s an unbelievable trek around the globe," he told Reality TV World. "We have a fun cast [and] we had a great time with them. They performed splendidly, they were exhausted, they were furious with each other, they loved each other, they were ready to give up. You name it, all of the emotions you can possible imagine on [a show] like this."

Unlike CBS' other long-running Big Brother and Survivor reality series, which have regularly used new twists over the years, The Amazing Race's thirteenth season stuck to a format very similar to the show's previous editions -- a move van Munster said was a deliberate decision to adhere the six-time Emmy-winning show's original concept.

"The more you start messing with an original concept, usually it doesn't get much better. It doesn't really improve," he said.

Instead, van Munster said he placed additional emphasis on designing intriguing task challenges for the new season.

"What I've done [for this season is] I've come up with so many insane challenges that it should do the trick and I think it will be plenty exciting for an audience to watch it," he told Reality TV World.

Rather than moving away from the show's original concept, The Amazing Race 13 will actually attempt to return closer to it and feature "clues" -- which despite their name, have devolved into more basic instructions over the years -- that are more complex and closer to those used in the show's initial editions.

"I think that you'll definitely see it... we really try to go back to the old ways so the audience doesn't feel like we're 'FedEx-ing' people around the world," van Munster told Reality TV World.

"We are very diligent and I am extremely aggressive about it that the show stays really truly original and distinct to the original core as possible."

In addition, the season also happened to play out as one of the few The Amazing Race editions in which one of the competing teams failed to make it to the course's finish line -- an unexpected development that was welcomed by van Munster.

"I like it when people don't make it to the finish line," he said.

Non-elimination Pit Stops will also return as part of The Amazing Race's thirteenth season, according to van Munster, who said he was unsure why fellow executive producer Jonathan Littman had incorrectly told reporters -- and van Munster had then subsequently confirmed -- the stops had been eliminated from last fall's twelfth edition.

"That was our mistake," van Munster, who admits to not being a fan of the non-elimination Pit Stops, said of the confusion. "We probably all had jet lag, but there's always a non-elimination in there."

Last season's new Speed Bump tasks -- the show's latest version of a penalty for the team that arrives last at a non-elimination Pit Stop -- will return for The Amazing Race's thirteenth season, according to the producer.

Viewers will also see a broader range of equipment brought by the contestants this season, including a decision by "Best Friends" Mark Yturralde and Bill Hahler to run the race using extra small backpacks.

"We had people showing up with 80-pound backpacks and we had people showing up with almost nothing," van Munster said. "It's their choice. This is a true reality show. You show up with whatever you have and then we turn you loose and you have to figure out how to do it. We don't sit there and guide [contestants] and manipulate it and edit it and all of that nonsense. We just turn them loose and off you go."

Van Munster said that while the thirteenth season's course -- which covers approximately 30,000 miles of travel and is similar to the length of last fall's edition -- is shorter than most of the show's previous seasons, it features many "really original" locations and will not seem short to viewers.

"If you look at where we're going it's unbelievable," van Munster said. "There are a couple of straight-line-shots that make the mileage a little shorter, but we are going all over the place on this one."

"If you look at it you say 'How can it [only] be 30,000 miles?' ... we have such insane plane rides."

Bolivia, Kazakhstan and Cambodia will be among several of the new countries visited for the first time.

"When I went to Kazakhstan everyone thought I was going to pull a Borat on them," van Munster said with a laugh.

In addition, Cambodia also proved to be difficult due to the country's lack of organized transportation systems.

"The infrastructure consists of mopeds, taxis, and buses -- and lots of them -- so it doesn't make [travel] easy," van Munster explained.

Overall, van Munster said he was extremely pleased with the season's result.

Non-elimination Pit Stops will also return as part of The Amazing Race's thirteenth season, according to van Munster, who said he was unsure why fellow executive producer Jonathan Littman had incorrectly told reporters -- and van Munster had then subsequently confirmed -- the stops had been eliminated from last fall's twelfth edition.

"That was our mistake," van Munster, who admits to not being a fan of the non-elimination Pit Stops, said of the confusion. "We probably all had jet lag, but there's always a non-elimination in there."

from TAR12 media

Quote

"The Amazing Race": The Emmy-winning reality show is not on the fall schedule and will return later. "The countries are very exotic," Littman says. "We're going to a couple of places that I don't even know where they are on the map. I've had to go look them up."

As for the teams? Lively.

"This is a tough group," Littman says. "They'll be younger. We still have a good balance."

The show will will do two fewer episdoes and drop the noneliminations to create more excitement.

Also adding to The Amazing Race 12's excitement level, according to van Munster, is the fact that the show has done away with non-elimination legs, a format change executive producer Jonathan Littman first revealed at the Television Critics Association summer press.

"The audience and ourselves, we're not crazy about non-eliminations," said van Munster. "It's exciting to see people eliminated at the end of every episode."

Non-elimination legs have been part of The Amazing Race since the reality competition series first premiered in Fall 2001, and the show's fifth edition was the first in which teams were penalized for being the last to reach non-elimination Pit Stops. Doing away with non-elimination legs means there will also be no more penalties, an aspect that van Munster said will also make The Amazing Race 12 more fast-paced.

"Penalties just make it murky," he explained. "This is just such a clean-cut concept, it's not about finding more penalties and hurdles for people. That's not what this thing is about. I think the audience and our fans like eliminations from what we understand."

The fact that a team will be eliminated at the end of every The Amazing Race 12 leg will also keep the contestants on their toes.

"For the contestants, the heat's on every step of the way," added van Munster. "Every leg of the way the heat is on because they can be eliminated."

You have to root for the hippie beekeepers. You just do. However, they are old. And they are hippies, so they won't be overly concerned with moving all that fast. This is an issue, because they are going on a race. They will make it past one elimination leg, but their sluggish movement will do them in eventually. Silver lining: viewers will once again understand why they used to love hippies.

You have to root for the hippie beekeepers. You just do. However, they are old. And they are hippies, so they won't be overly concerned with moving all that fast. This is an issue, because they are going on a race. They will make it past one elimination leg, but their sluggish movement will do them in eventually. Silver lining: viewers will once again understand why they used to love hippies.

Now I know who's out in Leg 1.

Y'all probably knew it already but I couldn't sort it out.

Those are his PREDICTIONS, not fact. I believe....

Logged

RFF's Golden Rule:Have RESPECT for each other, regardless of opinion. This of course includes no flaming/insulting other users and/or their posts.

Yesterday, we got our Amazing Race 13 Arbitrary Predictions started. It was fun, like riding a bicycle through heavy traffic or watching Bill O'Reilly argue immigration rights with Chewbacca. That is, to say, it was treacherous and mostly non-sensical. Which, to be fair, is how I generally like it. The Amazing Race 13 is going to be highly enjoyable, like all the seasons are. But, although I've seen nearly every Amazing Race season in their entirety, I don't remember much from past seasons. They all blur together for me, and I am always amazed at those uber-fans who have retained memory of every single past Amazing Race team. I can barely remember who won half of the seasons. Perhaps this means I'm an idiot. I hope not. Arbitrary Predictions, Part 2 – engage.

#6 - Terence and Sarah

In shape, capable, intelligent? Perhaps. However, I see serious blow-up potential between these two. Either Terence or Sarah will turn out to be a massive tool, and their traveling attitude will be too much to bare for the other. The incessant yelling and expletives will wear on the team, until they endure a complete and utter collapse, probably somewhere in Europe. Terence will almost be hit by a car. Sarah will be hit on by a greasy Eastern European man.

#5 - Andrew and Dan

Team Superbad. This is what the other teams have dubbed Andrew and Dan. This young male duo consists of two Arizona State University frat guys. And, yes, they look like frat guys. There are positives and negatives to this. Contrary to public opinion, not all frat guys are complete D-bags. I was not a frat guy during my college years, but count many among my current friends. Really, they're just like most people – there are some winners, some losers, some insufferable. Andrew and Dan seem like nice enough guys, but I fear their inherent frat arrogance will bite them at some point. They will be well-liked, however.

#4 - Ken and Tina

Ken cheated on Tina. Ken is an ex-NFL player. He was not an NFL star, as CBS has reported. He was mediocre, but being a mediocre NFL player still means you're an incredible athlete. Therefore, despite the advanced age, Ken should be a force to be reckoned with during physical challenges. The two will get along until, somewhere in the southern hemisphere, Ken will drunkenly apologize about the affair at a time when Tina would simply rather not discuss it. Tempers will flare afterwards.

#3 - Kelly and Christy

These two divorcees are my all-female best bets to win the million dollars. Unfortunately, history informs us that they won't. I'd like this to be the year when it happens, but I think there are other more qualified teams. Kelly and Christy will enjoy a love/hate relationship with both the viewers and their fellow teams. They will be bitchy at times, but with hearts of gold. A cab driver, probably somewhere in Asia, will know where their desired destination is, but because of their western attractiveness, will take the long way, ensuring more time the Americans' presence. This will force them into third place and a missed flight on the way back to America for the finish.

#2 - Nick and Starr

Off-Broadway actor and Dallas Cowboy cheerleader. Brother and sister. Nick and Starr are energetic, happy people who get along. They are both in very good shape, and have an easy way with people. They will almost finish in first, but they will make a critical mistake on the final challenge, which will involve some sort of frustrating puzzle.

#1 - Aja and Ty

Aja and Ty are incredibly likable humans. They have a long-distance relationship, so they will cherish the time they get to spend together on the Race. This will keep spirits high throughout the competition. It also doesn't hurt that both are intelligent. It will be a glorious victory.

Hello There!, Producers Speak OutAmazing Race Boss Speaks Outby Angel Cohn September 24, 2008 2:45 PM Season 13 of The Amazing Race premieres Sunday, and the Emmys were last Sunday. But in the middle of all of that madness -- just a couple days before the show's sixth Emmy win for best competitive reality programming -- The Amazing Race creator and executive producer Bertram van Munster took time to chat briefly with us about the show, Phil, and all those Emmys.

Oh, and we also talked about Television Without Pity, of course. When asked if he knows about the site, van Munster replied, "Of course I do. Please have mercy on me."

But, really, no mercy is needed with van Munster. He's an open, honest, passionate guy who was happy to talk freely right past the time when he left the office for the day. At one point, he apologized for the noise, but said he was arriving at the dry cleaner. The Emmys, after all, were only a few days away.

Speaking of the Emmys, van Munster said he's not upset that Phil wasn't nominated for best reality show host in that award's first year in existence (after the debacle that was the reality hosts hosting the Emmys, he's probably even less disappointed). He said, "Of course I want my guy to win it," but then he acknowledged that there is "phenomenal competition." Sadly, he actually singled out Howie Mandel, who van Munster said, "deserves a lot of credit." More appropriately, he said Jeff Probst does, too -- after all, "He was the first one to do it. We were the second, but he was first."

He then, of course, acknowledged all of those Emmy wins. After Sunday's sixth award in the category, The Amazing Race still has not lost as competitive reality, after all. "We get so much respect from the Academy and from our viewers. We owe them a lot of gratitude."

He went on to praise Phil profusely, though, saying he deserves all of the adoration he gets at TWoP, and then some: "He's a great guy. No pretense. He hasn't changed from the day he joined my team."

And that was a long time ago -- 13 seasons, and about seven years (van Munster mentioned the show premiering right after Sept. 11, 2001, having a negative effect on the ratings because no one wanted to think about traveling, yet alone racing around the world). But the show went on, through many changes, many versions, and many competitors. Van Munster said there's no way he could ever keep in touch with 300 people, but that he does keep in touch with almost everyone from season one, especially Joe and Bill (the Guidos), and Margaretta.

But he loves all of the past competitors, even if he can't keep in close touch with everyone: "I salute them all. I love them."

Don't mistake his enthusiasm about past teams as his love for the All-Stars edition, however: "I'm not crazy about all stars. In reality, the word 'star' is not applicable. ... You should always have new people. A reality show should always be fresh. To have experience in reality is not what I'm looking for. This is my personal opinion. I'm not crazy about it." Though he did then say that Rob and Amber are "phenomenal competitors," so no disrespect to them.

As for this coming season, Van Munster said that it's a fun, exciting race, with an excellent group of teams. He also said they're already hard at work on season 14. When asked how long the show will go on, he said, "It goes on as long as CBS will tolerate me and we get good ratings... It has evergreen potential. It is evergreen. We have steady, very young viewers."

One important element that sets the show apart and really keeps those viewers returning season after season, according to van Munster, is that it's one reality show that is actually real, rather than scripted, set up, and edited into something else entirely (as opposed to so many other reality shows).

,p>"We don't interfere," van Munster says. "I have a standing rule: Nobody interferes with what goes on on-screen. We're bystanders too, just like the people at Television Without Pity, watching what happens and saying, 'Oh my god! Oh my god!'"

Here's hoping for lots of those "Oh my god!" moments as the new season kicks off, and for years to come.

Very interesting interview! I think this might explain why a team ends up not reaching the finish line - maybe a clue something like the "smoke that thunders" of season 1.. what might it be for portland - a picture of Lewis and Clark, perhaps?

van Munster: "Rather than moving away from the show's original concept, The Amazing Race 13 will actually attempt to return closer to it and feature "clues" -- which despite their name, have devolved into more basic instructions over the years -- that are more complex and closer to those used in the show's initial editions. ""I think that you'll definitely see it... we really try to go back to the old ways so the audience doesn't feel like we're 'FedEx-ing' people around the world," van Munster told Reality TV World.

My memory was telling me that the Amazing Race 1 telecast episode 1 one week before 9/11/2001 and that the seocnd episode was delayed one week because nothing regular was being telecast on Sept. 12. My memory conflicts with the statement by Bertram van Munster (not exactly the first time this has happened) above that it debuted after 9/11. Wikipedia says (and I believe) "The Amazing Race (now referred to as The Amazing Race 1) was the first installment of the reality television show, The Amazing Race. It premiered on September 5, 2001."

There is an insidious change that most of you probably have not been aware of yet. It is the demise of the CBS Amasing Race 1 to Amazing Race 12 websites, who are no longer accessible and may even have been deleted. I for one that believes this was totally unfriendly toward the Amazing Race forums (not just RFF) community and that it needs to be heavily protested right now. So I urge you to go to the CBS.com homepage and look for the UserFeedback link on the bottom. For category, click on Amazing Race, and then just enter the requested information. I classified mine as a Complaint (not a Comment) to highlight the imnportance of this. Here is what I entered on the CBS feedback form:

I am appalled to find out that the websites for Amazing Races 1 through 12 have been discontinued or at least are no longer accessible. Those websites provide a valuable public resource that builds goodwill for CBS. Many in the Amazing Race forums community are incensed about this. What could it cost you to maintain a historical website? It can't be much. However, the bad publicity CBS is getting is quite real. Individuals may not stop watching Amazing Race 13 as a result, but they will have negative feelings about CBS and all of its programs.I urge you to reinstate those websites ASAP.

I'm glad you noticed this as well. The other day, I was looking up info on previous seasons for my TARA3 episode recaps and I knew I could count on going to CBS.com to find out. Unfortunately, they had been taken down.

I had to go to two other sites that shall not be mentioned. All video clips and recaps at CBS.com are now down. That's very unfortunate.